Scenes from Films
Lioness Season 3, Episode 8 – They’re returning Yurimov to the Russian Embassy in DC from Gitmo. He sits with Jo and has a drink (presumably vodka- the previous episode showed the aircraft was stocked with Stoli). They chat. It’s one of the show’s more realistic scenes because Yurimov has more in common with Jo than her family does, and vice versa. It’s interesting how that happens in that business, and it’s true. You may kill them when you see them next, but you still have more in common with them than you do with the swells in the general population or even your family who live normal lives. I related completely.
In the Feature Film Heat, LAPD Lieutenant (Al Pacino) meets with the robbery crew boss (Robert DiNero), and they talk about their respective situations (here). It’s a great scene. I had the Al Pacino job a long time ago and sat down with a character not much different from the one DiNero portrays. It went down much the same way.
Many intense situations we share with others are like that. Combat is one of those crucibles, but there are others – intense professional situations, shared loss and sorrow, and so forth. Having and raising children together provides a similar bond.
Bullet Points:
** GE is moving much of its appliance production back to the U.S. from Mexico. Recent investments include a $3 billion U.S. manufacturing investment announced in August 2025.GE announced a $1 billion expansion in Louisville, Kentucky, in September 2026. The company is moving dryer production from Mexico to Kentucky by late 2027. It is relocating gas ranges from Mexico to a Georgia plant. Shifting selected washer and refrigerator lines from China. Manufacturing new air conditioner models in Selmer, Tennessee. GE is building products closer to the U.S. customer base. Increasing domestic supply chain spending and local parts sourcing. Securing and expanding thousands of domestic manufacturing jobs.
** The US has extensive crude-oil refining capacity, but emergency measures should be enacted to set aside the burdensome regulatory hoops in place to build more refineries. The Green Movement did the public no favors.
** Slime-filled squishies have become this year’s hottest toy craze. (right) Coming this Christmas. I can relate to needing a squishy toy to squeeze. Like the “therapy dolls” you squeeze until the eyes bulge and the tongue pops out. I have no personal experience with those dolls – with your boss’s name on them. I read about them online… It’s like getting a voodoo starter kit from a friend when you get divorced, complete with doll and long pins.
** President Trump announces a huge plan to circumvent relying on Canada for Potash, crucial for American farmers, by forming a new deal to purchase it from Belarus. If you look at strategic minerals and Canada, it’s interesting, isn’t it?
** CDRSAL takes on land warfare in Ukraine. We should not get too excited. 29 square miles (75 square kilometers) is only a bit larger than Manhattan and a little smaller than Walt Disney World. If we scaled that up proportionally for the USA, that would be about 490 square miles, or the city of Los Angeles. Not nothing, but not a lot. That said, it isn’t so much the amount of territory as what it represents. That was Russia’s main effort for her summer offensive…and it has failed. What is worth noting is that the Ukrainians have demonstrated, again, that armor is not dead—limited, but essential when used properly. The concept of combined-arms warfare hasn’t changed, but older doctrines for using it are becoming outdated. We only have six weeks or so until bezdorizhzhia/rasputitsa kicks in and everything gets stuck to the axle…so…winter offensive, anyone?
** It’s sort of a dumb video, but it’s not atypical in SoCal, where Mexican narcos steal boats (often from US boaters who take their boats south of the border for fun) and then run them ashore with drugs and illegal aliens/wetbacks on the California coast. It’s difficult to catch them and, at best, a 50/50 proposition for prompt capture.
** 500 ARRESTED: ICE and Florida law enforcement sweep up 500 illegal aliens in a weeklong operation across Southwest Florida. Among those caught: a Haitian charged with murder after a woman was found dead from blunt force trauma, a Honduran accused of molesting children, a suspected Mexican cartel member, and a Guatemalan who allegedly grabbed a trooper’s Taser and tried to use it against him.
** The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of S‑300 missile clones to Ukraine, forming part of a broader $2.7 billion air defense package. These domestically produced missiles are compatible with Ukraine’s existing Soviet‑era launchers, allowing Kyiv to extend the operational life of its S‑300 systems. Analysts note that the move reduces reliance on Patriot interceptors, which face global demand pressures, by assigning less demanding tasks to the upgraded S‑300 clones. The package also includes launcher modification kits and counter‑drone radars, reflecting a layered air-defense approach. While the deal still requires congressional review, it underscores Washington’s commitment to supporting Ukraine’s resilience and modernization. If finalized, the sale will strengthen Ukraine’s ability to counter aerial threats, reinforce transatlantic cooperation, and sustain U.S. defense industry production.
** In reality, it depends on the context. Being alone in your opinion doesn’t mean you are necessarily right or wrong. What matters is the basis for your opinion and the mental process you used to arrive at it. The important lesson of holding on to your honest opinions is that you are the final arbiter of your decisions and responsible for them; no one else.
** Drake and the Counter-Armada disaster. It’s part of history often overlooked because it was – an embarrassment.
** What is happening at CNN (the Communist News Network)? CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is days from closing under new ownership, and the irony is hard to overstate. California Attorney General Rob Bonta led a 12-state coalition suing to block Paramount Skydance’s roughly $𝟏𝟏𝟎 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 of Warner Bros. Discovery. This weekend, that coalition settled, clearing the last major legal hurdle. The merger is expected to close by early October (CNN Business). The man running the combined company is 𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐄𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 — backed financially by his father, Oracle co-founder and Trump ally 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧, one of the wealthiest men on earth. “𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘊𝘕𝘕 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱, 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵,” one panelist said on air. “𝘓𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘌𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯’𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘴 𝘊𝘕𝘕. 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘓𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘌𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯.” The panel didn’t stop there: “𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘴, 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨,” one host predicted, adding CNN’s ratings have been “𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘬” for five straight years — “𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘬” — because “𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭.”
** Iranian airlines worldwide will be shut down today. It’s about time.
Fort Trump
Polish President Karol Nawrocki said any U.S. Army base built on Polish soil will be named Fort Trump, adding that a final American decision is “just a question of time” and that he wants the project finished before President Donald Trump leaves office in 2029. The comments came during the U.N. General Assembly. Just five days earlier, Pres. Trump said that “major progress is being made toward establishing a U.S. Army base in Poland” thanks to “the bold leadership of my friend, Karol Nawrocki.”
Fuel Lines in Russia?
Putin suddenly needs more troops. Reports circulate, claiming that Russia has deployed Rosgvardia (the National Guard) to thousands of gas stations.
The Russian National Guard is required to aid the militia (police) to stop fights between motorists waiting in long lines for fuel. Numerous fights among motorists have been reported. Other reports document fuel rationing, long lines, and authorities bringing in law enforcement to manage stations.
Authorities detained five people in Volgograd for filming a public appeal to federal authorities about the fuel shortage. Another man was detained and fined in Perm for planning a public protest of the gasoline shortages. The party line is that there is no fuel shortage. It’s your lying eyes.
Welcome to the US Navy
The cryptographer who handed the U.S. Navy its most critical victory at Midway didn’t get a medal. Instead, Joseph Rochefort was stripped of his command and exiled to a floating dry dock.
His crime wasn’t military failure. His crime was embarrassing his superiors in Washington.
In early 1942, Rochefort led Station HYPO, a cryptanalysis unit operating out of a windowless basement (dubbed “The Dungeon”) at Pearl Harbor. Rochefort was an eccentric maverick. He frequently bypassed the chain of command, worked 24-hour shifts in a smoking jacket and slippers, and communicated directly with Admiral Chester Nimitz.
By May, Rochefort’s team had cracked enough of the Japanese JN-25 code to determine a major attack was imminent against a target code-named “AF.” Rochefort insisted “AF” was Midway Atoll. The Navy’s main cryptography division in Washington, OP-20-G—led by brothers John and Joseph Redman—disagreed. They argued the target was the South Pacific, the Aleutian Islands, or the West Coast. They viewed Rochefort as a rogue subordinate who was overstepping his bounds.
To settle the debate, Rochefort devised a trap. He had the Midway base broadcast an unencrypted message claiming their water distillation plant was broken. Days later, a Japanese intercept reported that “AF is short of water.”
Rochefort was proven right. Armed with this intelligence, Nimitz positioned his carriers to ambush the Japanese forces, sinking four Japanese fleet carriers and turning the tide of the Pacific war.
Instead of celebrating the man who made it possible, OP-20-G went into damage-control mode. After being proven wrong, the Redman brothers leveraged their connections in Washington to rewrite the narrative. They claimed the crucial intelligence had come from their own division and that Rochefort was an uncooperative subordinate.
Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet, despised mavericks and sided with the Redmans. When Nimitz recommended Rochefort for the Distinguished Service Medal, King rejected it. Shortly after, the Redmans successfully lobbied to centralize all cryptography under their command in Washington. Rochefort was relieved of his post at Station HYPO and reassigned to the West Coast to command a floating dry dock.
He served the rest of his career in obscurity and died in 1976. It took decades of lobbying by his former colleagues before the Navy posthumously awarded Rochefort the Distinguished Service Medal in 1985 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986.
VDH on Midterms
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
3
Parting Shot
End
(1) Some variety of the Storch.
(2) Ju-52. And the winged bomb-bird logo I like turns out to be Condor Legion.
(3) I think it’s a SNCAC NC.410.
– Kle.
1 Yes, but you don’t sound confident.
2 Exactly
3 You think? Well done.
(1) So many people built Storcheses…
(3) I do think, on occasion! It’s hard to find pictures of that thing to confirm my suspicions.
– Kle.
Ju-52 – What Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton left Bavaria in Where Eagles Dare
Great movie
Exactly. They just don’t make movies like that anymore. Pity. I guess it’s cheaper to make voodoo vampire slasher flicks.
X2.
Can’t watch the slam, bang, over-the-top CGI stuff anymore. Wears me out. Just one example — “Transformers”. On top of that, the plots are shallow, and the scripts are written for character actors. That said, they did a pretty decent job with “Fury”, in which Scott Eastwood has a part.
CGI stuff – the Chicago song “25 or 6 to 4” starts running through my mind about all the flashing lights, and stops at ‘Giving up. I close my eyes’.
Amazing how I can fall asleep in a theater during some huge battle scene.
The CGI images are getting better with AI. A decade from now, we’ll see how it all turned out if we live that long.
Sure, cheaper is one thing, but the other (and more important than profit, at least so far) thing is The Message (as Critical Drinker says). People are far more influenced by popular culture (TV, movies, popular music) than they’d like to admit (and that includes me). Hollywood and Big Music are well known to be heavily leftist, and honestly, a fair amount of rate “conservative” efforts at seizing the zeitgeist have not done well. As but one example, think of what Norman Lear accomplished with All in the Family. And that propaganda is TAME compared to the rot today.
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So studios run by people with agendas have been willing to lose money (one wonders where the funding for all these loss-makers comes from) in order to put unrealistic depictions of, well, nearly everyone, into the public view, in order to create wholly unrealistic expectations in the mind of the average person.
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But be of good cheer. With the Ellisons (père et fils) buying up seemingly All Media we can expect an end to all this leftist propaganda. It will be replaced by different propaganda more to the liking of the Ellisons.
I expect that the Ellisons will pander to bias to make money – which is the essence of the movie business and the larger entertainment industry. Culture (see Bollywood) tends to override good taste.
“** GE is moving much of its appliance production back to the U.S. from Mexico. ”
I remember working in a facility where we were assembling control panels for Whirlpool and Maytag, about 15 years ago.
They were moving production back to Ohio after giving up on Mexico do to quality concerns.
A big issue we were having were faulty lEDs from a directed supplier in China…
IEDs?? I think of something else when you write “faulty IEDs” …
Suspect he meant LED’s.
One of my big arguments on installing certain electronic parts for years is that they were actually made in Sydney and I had (still do) the personal number of the owner. He was a multimillionaire and would answer calls from my small company when it turned out they made a firmware mistake.
I used Chinese parts when I had to but they didn’t get the five year warranty.
I’m with RCC suggesting LEDs. I had an Amana glass top stove that worked wonderfully for a few years and then the control panel failed to light up. None of the local or national repair parts stores had any replacements and when I called the head shed at Amana, I was told that they stopped production on that line completely and that spare parts were not available world wide.
A great stove, but for the loss of a control panel the cooking war was lost.
Had one stove that had the motherboard go bad, and there was no replacement. We replaced it with a stove that only used natural gas and the pilot light igniter.
Stoves…turn the knob, gas comes put and is ignited by the sparkler. That’s all I need as well, no fancy stuff that only goes bad when the lightening storm lets the smoke out of the chips. Same goes for vehicles…not okay to talk on your cellphone without a bluetooth device yet automakers have a government allowed flatscreen in the dashboard just to turn the radio station…BUT that’s okay despite it being 10x more distractive. Then again government does the exact opposite of normal for danged near everything.
There used to be potash mines in New Mexico. I don’t know if they are still operating.
” relying on Canada for Potash”
The Donald yanking Carney’s chain. Check out Canpotex and the Port of Portland. B.C. and the Carney mob tried pressuring Saskatchewan. OK, we will ship South to the USA by rail (CPKP/UP) to Portland. Much like Alberta oil, the prairie Premiers have broad powers.
It may be a troll with teeth, or it may only be a troll.
Squishies – now that good wives are too hard to find…
S‑300 clone is running 50 year old laser targeting system. Simple technology by today’s standards and it should be fairly cheap to produce.
That cartoonist has those “womyn” down pat.
Poison.
X2
I kinda like the “Buckhorn” rear sight on the revolver.
I’m waiting to see the response when a man goes on trial for rape and claims uncontrollable hormones were to blame.
I suspect we all know …
Do I have enough popcorn? November is coming (and I suspect a Damned takeover of both house and senate … and a pardon for that *** … piece of work)
If for some reason, I had only one weapon (and “enough” ammo for same) for the coming games, what would it be?
Pump shotgun, “assault” rifle, cross bow?
>when a man goes on trial for rape and claims uncontrollable hormones were to blame.
I think I that’s already happened in Europe or the UK after a culture-enhancing “migrant” (self-propelled antiWhite bioweapon) raped a native girl. His defense claimed it was a “sexual emergency” and the judge went along with that.
Well, with all the talk about demanding ‘guardrails for AI’ those same Chicken Littles find it okay to eliminate societal guardrails…because… ‘feelings’.
‘Stupid is what stupid does’ (h/t FG), and the demented are foisting their brand of derangement onto the rest of us. Me?…not buying. However, if ‘the law’ allows this to happen then so be it, soon there will be a shortage of easy victims, and when the evil-doers turn to those who are able to defend themselves there will be a significant reduction in evil-doers…law of attrition works.
>but there are others – intense professional situations, shared loss and sorrow, and so forth
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Yep. Medicine is good for that too (though admittedly no one is shooting at us — except rarely in inner-city ERs). Social gatherings with a critical mass of medical people inevitably end up with at least one nonmedical person horrified. Either because of the gross-out factor (poop stories are excellent for this) or the “my god, what’s wrong with you people” factor as in “but you said the patient DIED! Why are you all laughing!!??”
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In a similar vein, an MD colleague’s mother was diagnosed with very early stage of the most curable type of breast cancer. Needless to say, the entire family was upset. “Kayla” was the only medical person in the family and tried to set the tone by expressing concern, then launching into the excellent prognosis, and what Mom should expect in terms of treatment regimen. This calmed Mom and Dad down a bit, but the (adult) sister became nearly hysterical, screaming “Why aren’t you crying? Do you hate Mom? What’s wrong with you?” And so forth. Kayla said her sister was so upset that she feared the sister was either going to strike her, or do herself an injury. (Mom had complete remission, by the way.)
Lioness: Had to watch the last episode, good decompression fodder…but certainly a cautionary tale for those in that business. To me, if half of hat goes on in the show is at all accurate, well, WTP have no clue what goes on behind the scenes. Even Sheridan writes into the dialog the things the Aware suspect goes on all the time but aren’t involved in that world (spun stories for the MSM chirpee’s to lap up and regurgitate.) it interesting.
***
On that note…PDJT/UN/Greenland et al: No one can mess with The Big Dog, they can try, but half the time they can’t even get an invite to the front porch, and when they do it almost humorous to watch them fold like cheap umbrellas in a Wyoming ‘breeze’. Talk about owning the place…which is what Real Americans who love our country voted for. God speed.
The real lioness team is upset at the portrayal on screen.
Heard that as well, which the ‘idea’ came from Jill Wagner who’s husband was telling her about the program. Wagner then shopped it to Sheridan who wrote her (very atypical compared to the Hallmark roles) character into the storyline. In the end it is TV drama, and despite art imitating real life I do wish Sheridan would tone down the in-your-face dialog, would be more enjoyable to watch as we suspend some reality to decompress and head into the ‘nothing box’ at days end. (While I am not overtly sensitive to language TV does not always need to directly mirror reality, implied is often acceptable…yet that is the society we find ourselves.) in the end our lead character blew up her life because she was…misguided as to what is truly important. National security is not unimportant…but I find myself commenting to the screen, “Take the damn desk job!, enjoy your family and very nice DC suburbs brick center hall colonial with all the requisite moldings, and be a mom to your kids.” Then again, if that were the case there’d be no story.
It’s a fictional television show with a beat score that reflects the need for character development, drama, action, and reflection (rinse repeat).